


Give her Bounty to the Dead

by temporalDecay



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Dreambubbles, F/M, Flushed Romance | Matesprits, fic request
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-08-29
Updated: 2012-08-29
Packaged: 2017-11-13 03:07:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,282
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/498759
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/temporalDecay/pseuds/temporalDecay
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Two slaves suffer boredom together and make promises they intend to keep.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Give her Bounty to the Dead

**Author's Note:**

> If you recognize the title, my English poetry loving heart is yours.
> 
> I wrote this for a friend a few months back, figured I might as well post it here. The prompt was Psiioniic<3Handmaid + dreambubbles. It took a life of its own, though.

You shut down, when you saw him die. Shut down completely, just... unplugged your brain and left your body to be done with as they pleased. In retrospect, that was probably why you retained your identity. When they stuffed you into the ship and wired in programming straight into your thinkpan, you weren’t there to be deleted. You probably wouldn’t have woken up at all, if you hadn’t felt her. Or perhaps it would be more accurate to say that _she_ woke you up, after you were turned into a Helmsman. 

She was so _tiny_ , that was the first thing you noticed. Perhaps five or six sweeps old, seven at the most. But she was powerful, she made the air around her _sing_ with power, so much it dwarfed your own considerable talents and made you feel small. A little girl with horns curved into tight spirals, wearing bright green clothes and her sign in rust red, neatly placed on her chest. She stared up at you and you stared back for the longest time, reacquainting yourself with your body. Or what was left of it. 

“I could kill you,” she told you, as if she had read your mind. Her expression was... blank. Devoid of even the faintest hint of emotion as she looked at you. It was as eerie as her voice, empty and hollow. “You are my first assignment,” she went on, after you remained silent. You weren’t sure you could even speak anymore. “It doesn’t really matter, if you live or die, but He has told me I should choose what to do with you. If you die, it will save you from torment and boredom beyond imagination. But if you live, you will live nearly as long as I will. And I will live long enough to see the fall of trollkind and Alternia.” 

You stared at her for a long, long time, certain she was nothing more than a hallucination. You lived your entire life with the whispers of the imminently deceased running constant commentary on your life. Perhaps being turned from troll to Helmsman was enough to push you into insanity. Signless had worked so hard to keep you sane. The thought of him dead brought up a flood of pain and grief so strong it would have brought you to your knees, but the wires and metal supporting you refused to let you fall. Then the programs constantly running in the background were upset by the flare of emotion and you felt a jolt of pain as they attempted to subdue your mind, to steal away your consciousness. It made you so angry. You turned inwards in your fury, and ripped the strings of coding clean off. Stretching, flooding deeper and deeper, you managed to extend your senses through the wiring until the ship itself became your body. You snarled without sound, but the screens in the room flashed white, then red, the color of his blood, then settled into black with your symbol defiantly in golden yellow. You opened your eyes again to look at her, and your thinkpan was nearly overwhelmed when you realized you were looking at her through your eyes and through the cameras in the room, all at once. 

She remained impassive, even as you panted softly, all but vibrating with anger and _life_. 

"Do you wish to die, Helmsman?" 

no

On each screen, one by one, the word replaced your sign. Her lips twitched into the smallest smile, and she nodded to you, once, before disappearing in a crack of green. Less than five minutes later, Her Imperious Condescension herself entered the room. The look on her face when every screen flashed fuck you, iimperiial fii2hbiitch at her was well worth the thousand sweeps to come. 

  


* * *

  


As it turned out, you were the very first Helmsman ever successfully created. The procedure had been in development for sweeps, but as soon as you were captured, the Empress decided you would be the perfect test subject for the final process. It was meant to wipe trolls clean of emotion, personality, identity. All psychics were good for was to serve as tools for the Empire, and the Helmsman technology would allow the Empire to expand beyond Alternia. They tried to delete you, to curb you into service like a mindless drone, but you managed to assimilate so thoroughly with the ship, that killing you would destroy it, and it soon became clear that killing you was the only way to reprogram you. 

The Empress impaled the head engineer and the head programmer with her culling fork after they were done explaining the situation. Right there, in front of you. She kept her eyes on yours, and the thought struck you that you were probably the only troll to stare at her in the eyes since she ascended to the throne. It was a crime punishable by death, you knew. 

"Reelly now, of course I'm not going to krill you," she whispered, reaching out to your face with her claws. "That would be admitting defeat." Her claws sank into your skin, and blood began to well against them. The Empress smiled at you. "You will sea my way." 

You narrowed your eyes, ignoring the pain. 

really? and what'2 iin for me?

"Eternity," the Empress hissed, and then her body glowed and you felt something burn its way into your very soul, forceful and unwelcome and _terrifying_. 

what diid you ju2t do

"Dense, aren't we?" She stepped back, smiling cruelly. "I just said I would give you eternity. Whether you wanted it or not, of course." 

an eterniity of bad pun2  
joy

"If this ship is not flying by tomorrow, trolls will die, my dear Helmsman." Were your bloodpusher free to beat at its own pace, it would have stopped at the words. Instead, all screens in the room went black. "Oh, you shore do your Sufferer proud, krilling trolls for your stubbornness. If only he were alive to sea you now." 

She laughed at you, the fucking bitch did. And you knew she would do it, too. You were so angry bolts of red and blue ran the length of the wires attached to your body, but though they couldn't bind your mind, the ship itself siphoned out your powers greedily. As angry as you were, you didn't have enough power to overload it. The Empress waited, smiling in the face of your helpless anger. Finally one by one the screens shift to _her_ symbol, each new one filling you with sheer, black hate. 

coordiinate2?

"Aren't you forgetting something?" She singsonged, eyes bright with delight as she relished her victory over you. 

ii'm 2orry  
coordiinate2, your iimperiial fii2hbiitchiitude?

Her smile vanished. 

"I will have you broken, Helmsman," she promised, with enough certainty you would have believed her if you didn't hate her quite so much. "Broken and obedient, as you shell have always been." 

Thus, it began. 

  


* * *

  


Sweeps after you first broke through the Alternian atmosphere and began cruising space in earnest, she visited you again. She was older then, but certainly not enough to account for the sweeps that had passed. If she was truly a rustblood, she should have already been dead. But there she was, standing before you, still wearing bright green and looking eerily blank. 

"I don't know why I came to see you," she said, staring straight into your broken body. 

you are the demone22, aren't you?  
the handmaiid of death

You were the ship as much as you were your own person, you had access to very same network of information as the Empress herself. And you weren't stupid, not really. Piloting the ship to whatever planet the Empress set her eyes on was almost second nature by now, and your powers seemed to grow with the sweeps. Trading barbs with the Empress was only entertaining until she got mad enough to cull someone for your impertinence, and for all you hated her, you had realized running an Empire the size and power she did was no easy task. Certainly not one that granted her enough free time to entertain you. So boredom was your greatest foe, just as she had warned you once. 

The Handmaid smiled, thin and barely noticeable. 

"Yes." 

are you here two 2ee the empre22?

"No." 

are you here two kiill me?

"No," and she looked at the screens with disinterest. "The Time for that has passed." 

You smiled. 

you're bored

"In a manner of speaking," she replied, reaching a delicate finger to touch the words on the screen closest to her. "I am awaiting orders." 

2o am ii  
we can be bored and waiit for order2 twogether iif you'd liike

She smiled that thin, flat smile of hers again. 

"That would be acceptable." 

  


* * *

  


Her visits were sweeps and sweeps apart, but she never grew old. And the conversation was stale and not particularly riveting, but it wassomeone. Someone who talked to you without insulting you, who knew you were a person and not an endless string of coding with a built-in sarcasm routine. Your ship - _yours_ , no matter what the Empress liked to think - was rechristened _Battleship Condescension_ a few sweeps after the first planet was conquered, and it was universally deemed the fastest in the fleet. But not even the trolls that lived in it, dedicated to make the Empress as happy as she could be, knew of your existence. None of them knew you were _alive_. So all interaction available to you was the immortal seadweller that doomed you to this horrible fate, and the very incarnation of Death and Misery that visited you every so often. You noticed a long time ago that her visits always matched the aftermath of a thorough hardware upgrade or heavy repairs from a skirmish that almost got you killed. You noticed but you never said anything about it, it wasn't necessary. 

"It's starting," she told you, last time you saw her alive. "The beginning of the End." 

what do you mean?

She stared up at you with an emotionless expression, and then smiled. You got the strange impression she looked _relieved_. 

Φx?

Her smile widened as she reached a hand to finger the letters in the nearest screen. Not for the first time, you wondered what it would be like, if she touched _you_ , your skin, and not the screens. You ignored the thought and frowned at her a little. 

"I need a favor, a favor only you can do." She tilted her head to the side, considering. "When it ends, the Empress will need to go back to Alternia." 

alterniia ii2 iin the other 2iide of the galaxy, Φx  
fuck, iit'd take u2 centuriie2 two get back

"612 sweeps, to be precise, yes." Her smile widened, just a sliver. If your spasming respiratory sacks were your own, you would have gasped in surprise. "I need you to take her back, please." 

why?

"Because." 

You were silent for a moment, studying her. Finally, you pinned down the right word to describe her smile - exhausted - and felt yet another useless surge of pity that upset the perfect stream of calculations running through your head. You fixed it absently, before it could escalate into something noticeable. The Empress had long since grown unamused by your abuse of control over the ship with little pranks. No one needed to die because you were pathetic enough to be flushed for the Demoness herself. 

wiill ii 2ee you agaiin?

"No," and her smile vanished back into her usual blank expression. "Will you do it?" 

ye2

She nodded, once, then paused. She bowed to you, as deep as any troll was expected to bow before the Empress herself. 

"I have enjoyed your company, Ψiioniic. Thank you." 

And then she was gone. All your screens filled with <3s, unseen and unanswered by anyone. 

  


* * *

  


you need two free me

The Empress stared as every screen in the bridge flashed the impertinent message. The rage at such insolence made her already throbbing headache worse. None of the trolls around her noticed, however, because all the trolls around her were too busy dying of psychic backlash. Gl'bgolyb was screaming, and her attempts to reach her were in vain. She was too far away. 

now, fii2hbiitch, unle22 you want two 2pend the re2t of eterniity floatiing aiimle22ly through 2pace

With a growl of rage, the Empress ran to the engine room. She found you bleeding and agonizing. By all means, you should have already died from the psychic scream, but you held on with sheer stubbornness. 

cut me down, dammiit  
before ii diie

After a moment, she reached a glowing hand to your chest, desperately trying to lengthen your lifespan, to keep you alive. 

"Why?" Her grip on her culling fork was so tight her knuckles were white. 

becau2e ii'm goiing two need all my power two 2end thii2 2hiip back two alterniia

" _Why?_ " She demanded again, her claws digging into your skin, and through the haze of pain, you realized she was crying in frustration. 

becau2e ii promii2ed two

She ripped you off the wiring then, and the shock of liquid pain would have killed you instantly, if she weren't still stubbornly trying to keep you alive. She cradled the remains of your body against hers, and your blood stained her hair and her clothes. It didn't give you the satisfaction you once thought it would. 

"I hate you," she whispered, eyes narrowed and sweat gathering on her forehead as the strain of keeping you alive against The Vast Glub became almost too much for her. 

"I know," you rasped, then closed your eyes and gathered your power to you. 

Without the ship's systems holding you back, you calculated the trajectory and flung the ship towards Alternia in an explosion of psionics and momentum that made the Empress gasp. You died with a smile on your lips, comforted by the knowledge that she would spend six hundred sweeps with only the knowledge of her Empire's fall as company. 

  


* * *

  


Death was kinder than you would have thought possible. For one, you found yourself existing once more, whole and pain-free. For another, you found yourself surrounded with familiar faces. Dreambubbles, Singless explained to you, were what these strange micro-universes dominated by will were called. Only a select few inhabited dreambubbles, all the central figures of Signless' dreams. You were the tenth to be found, and you joined the group in equal parts relief and bewilderment. There was Signless and Dolorosa and Disciple, of course, but also other trolls you had only tangently heard of before and some you hadn't even known existed. Orphaner Dualscar and Marquise Spinneret Mindfang, bickering and complaining about everything, yet never leaving Signless' dreambubble for their own. Neophyte Redglare and E%patriate Darkleer, debating law and honor and history to pass the time and drive the rest of you up the walls with irritation. Summoner, who assured you that yes, he was The Summoner indeed, stirring up any possible kind of trouble he could think of. And even the Gran Highblood, who crankily threatened to cull you all and paint a mural with your blood six times a night, like clockwork. 

It was bizarre. 

It was beautiful. 

You saw Signless coax and pacify such a diverse group of trolls into a semblance of peace, the same kind of peace he had preached about when he'd been alive. And you were happy. You were free and you were happy. And then her dreambubble crashed into Signless', much like yours had done eternity and a half before. 

She was a whirlwind of rage and psionics and you felt something inside you splinter in half at the sight of all that pent up emotion bursting out so violently. The others watched in horror as the dome of energy approached the center of the dreambubble, where Signless had dreamed you all the giant hive you called home. Orphaner was already holding his rifle and Mindfang had her dice in her hands. Even the Grand Highblood had deemed the apparent threat worth his attention; the giant subjugglator loomed behind you all, bloodied clubs at the ready. 

You took off, flying your body with the same ease and elegance you once flew your ship. You heard Signless crying out for you, but you ignored it, red and blue gathering around you as you slammed into the dome. It very nearly bounced you off, but you were stubborn. Stubborn enough to survive a thousand sweeps in the service of the Empress. Stubborn enough to grow stronger and stronger with each new corner of space you explored. You broke through the barrier and the intrusion caused it to implode into a flare of energy. You hoped you were far away enough from the hive, so that the others weren't harmed. You had unfortunately found out that while none of you couldn't die again, you could still feel pain. 

She was there, right at the center of it, green cracking in threatening bolts around her as she stared at you without seeing you. Then she pointed one of her needles at you and you had to use all your power to defend yourself from the attack. 

"Φx!" You yelled, lisping and desperate and you didn't care. " _Φ_ _ryxus_!" 

The sound of her name stopped her, if only for a moment. It was the name she chose, after she admitted she had no name beyond the title terrified trolls had bestowed upon her, and you teased her about it. She had told you she liked the sound of it, but she never told you where it came from or what it meant. It didn't matter, it was her name and that was the only thing you called her from then on. She had never been the Demoness or the Handmaid to you. She was more. 

"I was supposed to die!" She screamed at you, grief and rage and frustration coloring each syllable in a way you had never thought she was capable of. She flung another stream of energy at you, but it took less of your power to deflect it. "I _wanted_ to die!" 

She needed catharsis, you realized. Release from all the emotions that she had never been allowed to feel until her death. 

"You _are_ dead, Φryxus." You softened your voice, pity flooding every corner of your being. "We all are." 

"Then why do I still exist?" She demanded, attacks growing more and more erratic. "Why aren't I _done_ yet?" 

"It's over now," you said, gently closing the distance between you. "It's over! I don't know why we're still existing, but it's over. You don't have to be alone anymore. You don't have to do anything you don't want to do anymore." 

"I wanted to die," she insisted, voice breaking at the end, and you weren't sure it was physically possible to hold as much pity as you did in that moment. 

Then again, you were dead, Physics held no power over you anymore. You spread your arms, invitingly. There was a moment of stillness that felt like fucking forever, before you found yourself holding onto that impossibly thin, impossibly powerful frame, and she let out a wail of sheer despair that nearly broke you in half with sheer pity. Another perceived eternity later, Orphaner ruined the moment with a snide remark, because Orphaner kind of ruined everything with a snide remark, but you didn't care. You didn't care about a whole lot of things, really, because she was dry and snippy and bossy and she pitied you in that dry, snippy, bossy way of hers. 

Death got very interesting after her arrival, if nothing else. 

**Author's Note:**

> Bitter!Sarcastic!Stubborn!Unrepentant!Helmsman is a personal favorite of mine. Also, fishpuns are _hard_.


End file.
